Autism Research

Scientific and societal interest in autism has burgeoned in the past decade, as documented by nearly 20 million websites, over 30,000 entries in PubMed, and a weekly focus on autism by the national media. But with this surge of scientists and society turning their attention toward autism, it becomes exceedingly important to distinguish uninformed stereotype from scientific reality, to move beyond myths and misconceptions. In one line of my autism research I have empirically questioned several commonly held assumptions: